recipe: Grilled Mediterranean Sandwich

So the other day I had an agreement with The Wife about making dinner during the week. I agreed to make a sandwich on tuesday and she agreed to make asian food on wednesday. The only problem about it was that I had no idea what to make because I didn’t want it to be just a sandwich.

My first though was: let’s check out foodgawker.com and tastespotting.com to get ideas and maybe a recipe for a nice grilled sandwich. Well it turned out that I just couldn’t find the right idea and I sat down and thought about ingredients that will work well together.

As you can see in the picture above you don’t really need much. So actually the following ingredients went into the sandwich:

8 slices of fresh bread

1/2 chorizo

200 gr of mozzarella

1/2 zucchini

1 yellow bell pepper

1 red onion

10 cherry tomatoes

1 clove of garlic

fresh basil

parmesan cheese

olive oil

salt

pepper

So now you know all the relevant ingredients and it is time to make this great grilled mediterranean sandwich.

Cut the chorizo in 0,5 cm thick slices

Cut the zucchini, bell pepper and red onion into chunky bits. Please don’t cut it into small pieces!

Cut the garlic into thin slices.

Cut or peel the mozzarella into thin slices.

Heat up two medium sized pans on low to medium heat. Add olive oil to one of them.

Place the chorizo slices in the pan without olive oil and fry them until they are slightly charred on both sides.

Place the zucchini, bell pepper and red onion in the other pan and fry until all vegetables become slightly soft. Don’t fry them until they are soggy!

While frying the ingredients cut the cherry tomatoes in half and add to the other vegetable once they are soft and reduce the heat to low. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to your liking to the vegetables now.

By now the chorizo should be nice and charred. Take them out and place them on a plate covered with kitchen towel to drain remaining oil from them.

Wipe the pan you used to fry the chorizo and add 2-4 slices of bread that are brushed with olive oil on one side and place it in the pan with the brushed side facing down.

Increase the heat to medium and place the mozzarella on half of the slices of bread. After two to three minutes the bread will be grilled and the mozzarella should have melted a bit.

Now it is time to assemble the sandwich. Place the bread with the melted mozzarella on a plate, add the fried vegetables on it, add a few slices of chorizo on top and finish it with a couple of fresh basil leaves and some parmesan. Top it off with another slice of bread without the melted mozzarella.

There you go! You just made on of the best sandwiches I ever had that will refresh you on a warm summer day.